The Morning Of
by shaunathan
Summary: It’s the day of Blue and Green’s wedding, but something has gone wrong. The rings are missing, and it’s up to Red and Yellow to find them. But there’s something on both their minds... something that makes Red very uncomfortable...


The morning sun struck the S.S. Anne as it sifted its way through the waves of the waters between the Johto and Kanto regions. On an early day like this, the passengers of the luxury cruise liner would usually be on the wooden deck, tanning or playing in the pool, or else enjoying some much-needed sleeping in. In all, the general mood on a morning like this was a relaxed contentment with the idle life of cruise sailing.

But on this day, as well as the day before, the ship's atmosphere instead held tense with bated breath, anticipating the momentous event to come, for today the S.S. Anne was playing host to a wedding. And this wasn't just any wedding; it was the marriage of two of the most prominent figures in recent history. As such, the ship held not only the two to be married, but also their closest friends, whose renown rivaled even their own, which added yet more awe and tension.

The guests themselves could feel the excitement as well, each finding his or her heart racing at even the slightest provocation, and their tense mood wasn't at all relieved by what was just about to happen.

"I can't believe we need another rehearsal," Gold grumbled, fidgeting uncomfortably in his suit. "We already ran through this like, nine times yesterday. We stand here like good little boys, the minister says some stuff, and the happy couple smooches while we clap. It's not that hard. We're missing so much time we could be relaxing before tonight."

"To be fair," Silver pointed out. "The rehearsal isn't really for us. My sister has been waiting for this moment her whole life, and she wants it to be perfect."

Gold shrugged. "I don't get the issue. So what if things go a little wrong?"

Silver gave him a hard stare. "Let me rephrase. My sister deserves for it to be perfect."

"And that's," Red cut in before an argument could start, knowing from experience that the two's tempers could flare at the slightest spark. "Exactly why we're rehearsing again. Blue wants us to be completely ready, and we should respect it."

"It's not just her though," Gold whined. "Mr. Über-serious has been freaking out about every little thing too. Between the two of them, I'm gonna have gray hair by the time this is done!"

"I wouldn't complain too loud," another voice chimed in from the other side of the curtain. Yellow pushed through the fabric divider that separated the groomsmen and bridesmaids, where the friends of the couple were preparing behind the altar for their roles in the upcoming rehearsal. "Green has pretty good hearing."

At the sight of Yellow, Red's heart leaped into his throat. She was always beautiful to him, but the bridesmaid's dress Blue had chosen for her to wear accented that beauty tenfold. In a twist of irony, the bride-to-be had decided her troupe would wear seafoam green dresses, while Green had chosen navy blue for the men. The way the green of the dress complimented Yellow's soft, blonde hair—which she had given up trying to tame and instead tied back in its usual ponytail with a thin, green ribbon that matched her outfit—gave her a transcendent, natural elegance, making Red feel like he was looking at a forest nymph.

"Looks like you all are ready," Yellow remarked. "I am too, but I haven't seen Crystal yet. I think she's overslept."

"Super-serious gal? Overslept?" Gold snorted. "Yeah, right."

Yellow shrugged. "I haven't seen her all morning." Her gaze fell on Red, and his heart danced. "Ah, Red, your bowtie is crooked."

It took a moment or two for Red to respond. "Ah, thanks."

His hands fumbled to his neck to try to adjust the tie, but instead Yellow reached out and took it herself. "Here, I have a better angle."

She twisted it counterclockwise a few centimeters until she was satisfied, but then they made eye contact, and everything seemed to pause. Suddenly, Red was very aware of how close they were.

Several long seconds passed until Yellow, pink in the face, let go of the bowtie and retreated a couple of steps, clearing her throat and looking away. "Um… I'm going to head back now and see if Crystal is here. See you guys." She quickly retreated through the curtain.

"Well that was awkward," Gold remarked. "Say, Senpai, aren't you two dating?"

"Sort of." Red found his mouth dry.

"Well then what was that about?"

Red didn't answer. He and Yellow had been seeing each other for several months now, ever since she accidentally confessed her feelings for him during a battle with a small Team Rocket splinter cell. They'd been on many successful dates during that time, but recently they'd hit a roadblock. Two months ago, Yellow had revealed she wanted more than just on-and-off dating. She wanted things to get serious. When she'd said that, Red had immediately felt a panic like he'd never felt before crash down on him like a tidal wave, and he'd all but run away from the prospect.

Since then, things between them had been tenuous at best. They'd still been on dates and had a lot of fun in each other's company, but whenever Yellow mentioned her proposal for a more serious relationship, Red had chickened out. He knew why things were awkward between them today. With the upcoming wedding on everyone's minds, a gigantic commitment for the two to-be-married, Yellow's thoughts were naturally focused on committed relationships, and therefore her desire to be in one with him, and he was fixated on the same thing. The same static had been there the entire time they had been on the ship; the two hadn't been able to be near each other for any extended stretch of time.

Suddenly, he heard Yellow yelp from behind the curtain, and a dull thud. Shocked, he looked at Gold and Silver, who both had the same wide-eyed look that said, I'm concerned, but that's the girls' room. Rolling his eyes that they could both act so childishly, Red pushed through the curtain to check on Yellow.

Crystal, who looked disheveled and panicked, was busy babbling hasty apologies to Yellow and helping the girl up off the ground, apparently having run in so quickly she'd knocked her over.

"Sorry, sorry, I wasn't looking--didn't think you'd be right on the other side," Crystal stumbled over her words. The normally calm, collected girl seemed downright terrified.

"It's fine. I'm okay," Yellow reassured her junior, getting her feet back underneath her and rubbing her shoulder, which looked like it had taken the brunt of her fall. "What's going on?"

Crystal looked sick. "I… well, you see, I didn't mean to… I knew exactly where I thought they were--"

"Crystal, calm down," Red interrupted. The girl looked ready to hyperventilate.

"I lost the rings!" Crystal burst out, flapping her hands wildly. "Blue gave them to me because she thought I was 'responsible,' and 'on top of things,' and I lost them! I can't believe I did something so stupid! This is something Gold would do, not me!"

"Hey!" came Gold's muffled voice from the other side of the curtain.

"Calm down, it'll be okay," Yellow told her in a placating voice, patting her shoulder. "Do you have any idea where they could be?"

"No, not a clue," Crystal mumbled, her panic finally dulling, though still very much there. "I looked everywhere I could think of, but they're just missing."

Yellow pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. She shot a glance at Red, and then said, "Okay, Red and I will go look for them. We're not essential for the rehearsal. When they need the rings, just make an excuse up. Tell them you're keeping them somewhere safe until the wedding."

Crystal's face paled a few shades further. "You mean lie?"

Instead of answering, which would have just made the girl's anxiety worse, Yellow took Red by the wrist and led him out of the room, into the adjacent hallway from which Crystal had come. Red followed, but his footsteps were more hesitant than they would have been had things been different. She was taking him somewhere alone, and that set off alarms in his head.

"Where do you think we should start?" Yellow asked, avoiding eye contact but still holding his wrist.

It was a moment before Red snapped back to reality and realized she'd asked a question. "Oh, um… I guess if we're retracing her steps, we ought to start where she did."

She nodded. "Her room, then."

"R-Right," Red agreed hesitantly, and the two made their way toward Crystal's cabin. He'd known that would be the answer to his proposal, but he was still uncomfortable with the idea of entering a girl's room—any girl's room. The idea made him sweat, though that wasn't helped by the searing feeling of Yellow's hand looped around his wrist… the same wrist that had been frozen when she risked her life for him…

When they got to the cabin, Yellow led the way in. The door was unlocked and swung open with a seamless silence that only the door of a luxury cruise liner could. Stepping in, Yellow finally released her grip to turn on the lights, which lashed out across the room, illuminating its fixtures with a fluorescent glow.

Crystal had obviously turned the entire room upside down searching already. The bedsheets were on the floor, the drawers of the wardrobe were flung open and the double doors askew, her suitcase lay overturned on the desk with its contents spilling out, and the desk itself was missing one or two drawers, which lay cast aside and empty on its surface. Had she not been already in a panic over something else, Crystal would have normally thrown a fit over the state of the place.

Yellow crossed the threshold breezily, but Red hesitated. The harsh electric lights bounced off the room's contents at unnatural angles, making it all look artificial. The walls, too, seemed even narrower the closer he looked, as if they'd snap shut on either side of him if he entered. It all resembled, in his mind, at least, an elaborate trap.

While he debated, Yellow turned and gave him a quizzical look. "Coming? What's the holdup?"

Red swallowed his nerves and stepped into the room after her, shaking his head. "Sorry, I'm just not super comfortable going into a girl's room."

She shrugged and gave an understanding nod, crouching down and lifting up the discarded bedsheets. "That makes sense, but you'll get used to it eventually. After all, you'll be in a girl's room all the time when you're married."

There it was. That was the line he'd known would be coming--the line that made his heart stop and his fight-or-flight instincts flare up. It was such a casual comment, something anyone could have said on any day. It was almost a joke, but they both knew better than that. She knew the thoughts that would trigger in him, knew that in that one throwaway line she was proposing that they advance their relationship. It said, without saying, "When we're married." He knew she understood exactly what she was doing. It was deliberate; she would never have made such a comment before.

"Yeah, I guess I will," he forced out, keeping his tone neutral.

To his credit, he didn't run from the room, and to hers, she didn't bring it up again.

After twenty solid minutes of searching, their combined efforts had yielded nothing but dust bunnies, stray socks and underwear from the suitcase, and scattered research papers Crystal had brought to examine before the wedding. They'd overturned every inch of the cabin, but hadn't found a trace of a ring.

"What now?" Red wondered aloud.

"It's not here," Yellow said. "But I did find this." She held up a sleek, black notebook labeled 'AGENDA' in silver marker. She flipped it open to yesterday's date and examined the page. "There's only one thing on her to-do list, so we know where to go next." Holding up the book so he could see, she tapped the only entry on the page. Written in loopy cursive that took a moment for Red to decipher, it read, 'Get coffee at café.'

She snapped the book shut and set it on the desk again. "We'd better get going. We're running out of time."

Yellow didn't take his wrist again this time. Instead she grabbed his hand and took off at a trot that forced him to either keep her pace or hold her back. The upside to this was that they got to the café very quickly.

A single waitress watched them curiously from behind the counter as they set to work looking through each abandoned booth and beneath every barstool.

"You know," Yellow began in a conversational tone as they searched on hands and knees beneath one booth. "It's a pretty big deal that Blue and Green are getting married. I mean, our best friends. It's a pretty big commitment for them, huh?" She turned her brown eyes on him, asking for a response to the question he knew she'd asked.

Suddenly, the wide, open space of the café seemed to collapse in on Red. The very air felt like it was rushing into his throat and freezing there, trying to choke him. His spine got the tingly feeling it always did when he was in danger, making his muscles tighten in preparation to run. "Um…" He fought to keep himself from bolting out from under the table. "Yeah, it is, isn't it? I'm happy for them."

He really was. He was happy Blue and Green were mature enough to make a commitment to each other like that. He was happy for them, that they were mature and yet he wasn't. That was just it, wasn't it? Blue and Green—no, it was just Green in his mind. Green was simply superior to him when it came to commitment. His old friend, his old rival, just had him fundamentally beaten.

It wasn't such a far-fetched concept. Plenty of times Red had wondered whether Green was, in some way or another, intrinsically better than him. More than once it had crossed his mind that there might be something about himself that was fundamentally inferior to the older man. After all, Red had only really beaten him once in anything, and that could be chalked up to a fluke, or else an exception to the rules that would be amended in the future.

By the time his thoughts on the matter had run their course and looped back around to the original question, he and Yellow had already swept the entire café, and yet again, they'd turned up empty-handed.

"They have to be somewhere," Red stated, as though speaking the words would magically cause the rings to turn up.

"Um, if you don't mind my asking," the young waitress piped up. "What are you looking for?"

Yellow answered. "One of our friends, Crystal—she's a bridesmaid—she misplaced the rings somewhere yesterday and we're looking for them."

The waitress looked pensive. "Crystal… is she the lady with the pigtails?"

Red and Yellow both nodded.

"Thought so; she signed the receipt 'Crys,'" the waitress informed them. "I lost her when she left here, but I saw her last night with a boy her age going into that room there for the party you all threw." She pointed at a set of double doors that led into the ballroom.

Red swallowed hard, knowing that was their last clue. If the rings weren't there, they had no leads. "That's really helpful. Thank you so much."

"Of course!" The young woman beamed, obviously glad to have been able to help. "You know, it's so strange to see you all dressed up like this, Mister Red. I'm so used to watching you battle on TV, or reading about your adventures in the news. I guess it's nice to know exciting people like you still do the same normal things the rest of us do." She giggled to herself. "Good luck on your search!"

As he and Yellow hurried to the ballroom, what she'd said wormed around inside Red's brain. It was nice to see 'exciting' people like him doing 'normal' things. Normal things, like attending a wedding. Normal things, like getting married. Normal things, like…

Like committing to a relationship.

It hit him like a hammer to the head. That was exactly why he was so afraid of pursuing a deeper relationship with Yellow, of committing to her. He'd spent his entire life doing extraordinary things, traveling regions, battling in tournaments, getting into adventure at every turn. Now, he was faced with a challenge far greater than any of that. He was faced with a decision that he feared would end that life, a decision that would make him, as the waitress said, normal.

He was still afraid, but now he knew why.

Red and Yellow scoured the ballroom more efficiently than they had any of the other rooms. There were few tables left, so the process was easier. Finally, after searching each side of the room in turn, there was only one table left. They both kneeled down to look underneath, and there they were, glittering in the fluorescent lights.

They both reached down to grab them at the same time, and, by chance, he picked up the one meant for Blue, while she picked up the one meant for Green. They slowly looked up and met each other's eyes with shallow breath as they realized the implication of their current position. A quiet understanding passed between them, and they found themselves drifting closer together, until…

"Hey!"

Crystal barged in through the doors and rushed over, breathless and pale. "They need the rings, now! I couldn't make up anything; I'm a terrible liar! Please, please, please tell me you have them?" When she saw that Red and Yellow were holding the wedding bands, she made a choked sound of relief and snatched them. "Oh thank you! Come quick, they're getting suspicious that you two are gone!" She practically sprinted out of the room.

With the moment broken, Red and Yellow could only burst into relieved laughter.

"Well, we did it," Red chuckled.

"Just in time, too," Yellow giggled. "Can you imagine her reaction if we hadn't found them?"

Just the idea sparked another fit of laughter.

"Oh man." Yellow got to her feet and held a hand down to Red. "Come on, we'd better get back."

He took her hand and stood as well, but didn't head for the door. Instead, he held her eyes and took her other hand in his, clasping all four together so the two were joined at the wrists. "Yellow, before I chicken out again, I need to ask you something."

The girl's mouth hung open in a startled 'oh.' It was obvious, that despite all her hinting, she hadn't expected this. Her wide eyes didn't break from his.

Red took a deep breath. "Yellow, I love you, I really do. I've been afraid, and that hurt you, and I'm sorry. But I want to make it right. I want to really commit to us. So… after we get back to Kanto, will you move in with me?"

A moment went by of Yellow visibly computing his proposal and short-circuiting, but that moment eventually passed, and when it did, a broad grin worked its way onto her face. "Yes!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. "Yes, of course I will!"


End file.
